


Bound

by karuvapatta



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Consent Issues, F/M, Married Couple, Minor Injuries, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Prison Sex, not comic compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 00:17:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14413569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karuvapatta/pseuds/karuvapatta
Summary: Ozai deals with imprisonment, poorly. Ursa deals with Ozai, also poorly.





	Bound

The first time she comes to visit, she slaps him. There are no mirrors here, but he imagines the imprint of her slender hand, red-hot and burning when he touches it. It’s the only warmth he has felt in a long time.

***

She comes, again and again, bearing tea or food. Sometimes she speaks in a cold, detached voice. Rage simmers beneath her polite words, in the occasional hand gesture, or fire flaming in her amber eyes.

He takes pleasure in testing the boundaries of her self-control. Her mask is perfect, if bearing the signs of maturity. She looks old and tired; he tells her so. Aware of his own haggard clothing, unkempt hair and beard, Ozai takes careful note of each wrinkle, each greying hair, the callouses on her hands.

Perfection used to sit so well on her. Always so beautiful, elegant, well-dressed; he wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

When Ursa isn’t here, Ozai meditates; when his muscles grow stiff and his mind begins to slip too far, he trains.

There’s a cold comfort to the familiar routine. Each move executed with strength and grace, countless hours of rigorous training behind them. If he is not careful, his mind drifts, anticipating the fire that is sure to erupt from his outstretched fist. Its heat overwhelms him, roars in his ears and in his blood. Power, pure power, at the tip of his fingertips—

But there is nothing. He stands in his empty cell, chest heaving, watching the flames that are no longer there.

He closes his eyes. With a great effort of will, he forces himself to go through the moves again, even though a tremor runs through his arms and he can barely remember where his feet should go. It’s familiar, and yet it isn’t.

A crack, and a flare of pain in his left fist; akin to burning. Akin to fire.

He breathes and breathes, relishing the sensation.

When he opens his eyes again, his knuckles are bloodied and swollen, unable to flex properly.

***

The guards don’t speak to him. He hasn’t bothered to learn their names. This one looks vaguely familiar, however.

Ozai sits perfectly still when the guard unlocks his cell, and presents his hands when prompted. Heavy metal cuffs are snapped tight across his wrists, connected with a length of chain. He could kill a man with these, had he so desired.

She always wears the hooded cloak when entering the prison. The guard bows when passing her. Leaves the cell open.

Ursa comes in.

She is here, and they are alone. His wife approaches him with no sign of tenderness or concern, displaying only single-minded determination. She takes careful note of the state of his left hand, her fingers a shock of warmth on Ozai’s cold, dead skin. A frown mars her once-flawless forehead.

“You could have been more careful,” she says.

Her movements are sure, practiced. She had treated his training injuries more times than he cares to count. A quick apology slips through her lips, a force of habit, when she pulls his finger and snaps it back into its socket.

Ozai has enough self-control to keep silent, but can’t quite master the tremor in his hand. The cuffs help, weighing him down.

Ursa darts a quick look at his face. This is perhaps the first time she had looked at him directly, and from such a short distance. The bars of Ozai’s prison cell no longer separate them. He can feel her warmth, smell the fresh scent of her perfume, drowning the by-now familiar aroma of mould, dampness, and decay.

He barely feels it when she sets his other fingers. Then she washes the blood off his hand with a damp cloth. His blood drips red into the bowl of water, staining it.

“They will take a while to heal,” Ursa tells him, securing the bandages around his joints, immobilizing them. “Try not to punch any more walls in the meantime.”

A smile stretches his lips. The pain has been a pleasant companion; the inflammation a reminder of when his body radiated constant heat. If she feels the change, she does not comment on it.

In a fit of rage, he had once burned almost every painting he had of her. Details of her appearance slipped his mind during her long absence. Now he can catalogue them again, but properly: the shape and colour of her amber eyes, more vivid than he remembered them. The curve of her lips.

Another memory resurfaces.

“On our wedding day,” he says. “You pledged yourself to me. Do you remember that?”

Ursa’s movements halt. She regards him, cold, wary.

“Yes.”

She had given her vows before the Fire Lord and the Fire Sages, in a steady voice. Only Ozai could see the hesitation in her eyes, a slight moment of doubt. But it did not matter. She married him on her parents’ orders, but he did not care about that, either. For a second prince with nothing but the shadow of his brother’s glory, the young woman who became his wife was the first thing, ever, to be wholly and completely _his_.

How fitting, then, that even though he lost all else, she is still here.

The handcuffs have been placed for Ursa’s protection, presumably. They limit his movements, but he can still reach out and curl his uninjured fingers around her palm. It fits so well within his grasp, smooth, elegant, dexterous.

“You have kept your word,” Ozai says.

Ever obedient, ever dutiful. Too honourable to disobey him, too proud to mourn her own fate. She does not love him, of course, but what is love against such steadfast devotion?

Her palm trembles. She wants to flee now, having seen to his injuries, but he will not let her. It’s been too long since he held her, too long since she shared his bed. And if she leaves now, she may not come back.

“Ozai,” Ursa says quietly.

She does not flee.

Her lips are a memory he had not been able to let go of. Now he can feel them again, soft, warm, yielding to his kiss, welcoming him. He can taste her doubts and her hatred, fully aware that if he asked, he would be met with rejection.

But she is here, and she is still his; and her very presence is a testament to that. No matter how far she might have tried to run, something brought her back to him.

A new fire springs to life inside him, one he has not felt in too long. The warmth of it is overwhelming, painful in its urgency. He draws her closer, no longer satisfied with her gentle kisses.

She gasps when his teeth scrape her neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. Her burning-hot breath is on his cheek, pulse beating wildly against his lips.

The threadbare fabric of his prison garments parts easily, exposing his chest to the chilly air. Ursa understands now what he wants from her, clever, ever so clever at playing her part. Her nails dig into his bare skin, threatening to draw blood, skirting the very edge of pleasure and pain. Ozai smiles when she drags them downwards.

It burns; oh, how he missed the burning.

She wears a fine silk robe, deep-red, stark against her pale skin. Once it unfolds, he can feel the swell of her breasts. His breath catches, a low groan escaping his throat.

The chain is just long enough for him to put his arms around her shoulders, and slide them lower, bringing her body close, so close. She slides into his lap, graceful, the chain links biting into the skin of her back. Her pupils are wide with desire, the gold a narrow ring around them.

She is hesitant, still. She cups his face and kisses him full on the mouth with curious tenderness. Her courtly mask wavers, betraying a range of emotions he can’t understand. He has never been able to learn. She guarded herself so carefully, her body and her loyalty his for the taking, but her innermost thoughts kept a secret.

It is easier to forget when he sucks a kiss into her shoulder, sure to leave a bruise. When he holds her hips so tight and feels their slow, rolling movement, maddening, too many layers separating him from the wet heat of her body. He is hard, painfully so, but her desire is just as obvious.

This is not how he imagined having her again. If only she returned sooner, when he was at the height of his power, the Fire Lord ready to welcome his queen. Now all they have is a cramped cell and a cold stone floor.

Well, she has suffered worse for his sake. For years she suffered, hiding her pain beneath excellent manners and flawless appearance. How he loved that about her—how good it feels to see her again, touch her, hear his own name gasped into his ear in his wife’s sweet voice.

Her hand curls around him, teasing, guiding; and it’s heat he has never expected to feel again, a feeling he does not know how to express.

He lets her set the pace, slower than he would have liked. He lets her kiss his face and neck before he captures her mouth again, sharing a long, languid kiss. Her hands are in his hair again, pulling, pain shooting through his scalp.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he says, urgent, pulling her closer, pushing in deeper. He can hear her heartbeat and feel the heat of her skin, and it’s almost enough to send him over the edge. But he needs more—“Swear it.”

Ursa doesn’t, too lost, or perhaps unwilling—she tries to distract him with a kiss, but he will not let her.

“ _Swear it_.”

He hates the sound of his own voice. The pleading, the desperation. It’s pathetic, unbecoming, and so painfully obvious. He has no power left, nothing to hang over her head. Threats and bribes are useless now.

She buries her face in the crook of his neck, shivering when he kisses the bitemarks on her pale shoulder.

“Yours,” she whispers, bitterness and contempt tainting the admission.

But it’s enough. She may hate him, and she may hate herself for coming here. He is almost certain she does. But they are bound by law, and blood, and shared heritage. Ursa wouldn’t be herself is she were to disregard that.

He wants the moment to last forever. He wants to be consumed by the flames; he wants to burn. Most of all, he wants his wife to burn with him.

When he kisses her afterwards, he can almost believe she will.


End file.
